The "Register sequencing started" may register without a start date

[Nicklas Nordborg]

It is important that a start date exists since it is used by the following wizards for filtering.

The problem is that if the user skips the "Start date" no validation of the input field is done and the registration is allowed to proceed. There is a validation just before submitting the data but this check assumes that a "real" validation has been done before and only checks the value of the valid property. Normally this should be either 1 (=valid) or 0 (=not valid). Unfortunately a missing value is interpreted as a 1.

In this case it would have been better if a missing value was interpreted as a 0, but the validation code is used in more than 40 other places so changing the default behavior might cause problems elsewhere (for example, dates that are optional).

Possible solutions:

• Force a validation when the page is displayed
• Provide a default value (eg. today's date)
• Both of the above

The workaround is to manually enter the date in the following places:

• SequencingStart annotation on the sequencing run item that was created
• ClusterStart annotation on the flow cell
• Created date property on the flow cell
• Created date property on the parent PooledLibraryAliquot parent extracts that are put on the flow cell.

[Nicklas Nordborg]

(In [4293]) Fixes #930: The "Register sequencing started" may register without a start date

A default start date value is now set to the current date and a validation is done immediately when the section is made visible.